The force from the explosion pummelled through the air. The ceiling cracked, dislodging plaster and stone that collapsed to the floor in dusty heaps. Several more crashes resounded through the air. Then, in the distance, a mild orange light glowed, accompanied by the acrid scent of smoke.

“What just happened?” I demanded.

“My friends are here!” Lisa replied. She had managed to stay upright while I had been flung to the ground. “They’re a little loud, as you can see.”

“Your friends are arsonists?” I hissed.

“Yes, that’s one way to put it.”

“They just bombed the place! What’s the point of that when—”

“No time to talk! Come on, mister, and stay close. They’ll help us.” She tugged on my sleeve and pointed down the corridor. It was straight towards the direction of the detonation site. I glanced at Lisa. She grinned in response.

“Sure.” My mouth said to Lisa. No way in hell. I thought. You’re suspicious. You come out at me in the dark, seem completely nonplussed about me beating up random strangers in front of you and you coincidentally know arsonists? You’re not telling me the whole story. And I bet you’re not an average high school girl, either.

Many possibilities spun through my head. Escaped asylum patient, deranged artist-cultist, sociopathic little heiress…none of them were good. One thing was clear: the moment we escaped, I was breaking off from this madwoman and never meeting her again.

“Come, mister!” In the end, I had no choice in the matter. This was a repeating pattern today, I noticed and grimaced.

Lisa stepped past me. I didn’t follow immediately. Instead, I took out my combat knife, reached behind me and sliced the hoodie off my tracksuit. Next, I retrieved the water bottle I stored earlier and dumped the lot on the cloth. Result: a sopping wet path of cloth, which I tied around my mouth, then bit into with my teeth. This would protect me from inhaling too much smoke particles. Some would get in through my nose, but my nostril hairs would filter most out.

Rule of any good mercenary: pay attention to the little details. You never know when it might save your life one day.

The heat intensified as I followed Lisa down the hallway. An orange glow bloomed in the distance like a malevolent flower. My loose fitting tracksuit, once slightly chilly down the basement, absorbed the heat and constricted it around me like a fiery vice. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck as my head throbbed. There’s a real difference between a hot summer day and fleeing a burning building. The heat doesn’t like shine down upon you, it seeps past all your defenses and burrows deep into your skin. There would be red patches, perhaps even minor burns, when I woke up the next morning.

Lisa didn’t hesitate. She marched forward down the now-warm corridor, hoisting the flag above her shoulder. This girl had nerves of steel, was suicidally overconfident or sick in the head. All three were not mutually exclusive, as sad as it was to admit. I held my combat knife tight in my sweaty palms. No clue who was extracting us, but I wasn’t about to get caught off guard around them.

A loud scream echoed around the corner. Lisa rounded the corner, undeterred. I stuck behind, then poked my head around the corner. A fire raged inside a doorway, spewing out thick black smoke. The solid walls were containing it, though they wouldn’t last.

The scream belonged to a tall, muscular man who stood in front of the doorway. He had a slicked-over, spiky hairstyle. Beneath it was a pair of shades were trimmed with gold. The heavy, leather jacket on his back bore a print of the snake mural from downstairs, its slitted-eyes piercing venom-green in the dark. BOSS MACK, it said.

“No, our supply! What the fuck happened?” Boss Mack screamed.

“I don’t know boss!” One of the gangers surrounding him said, trembling. He was sweating like mad. Others were coughing and stepping back from the fire. “The lights went out and suddenly the room was on fire.”

“Get the fucking fire extinguishers!” Mack spun on his heel and shouted to his screw. “Move, move, move!”

“T-they were inside the storage!”

“Then get the other ones from the drug lab, you slagheaded useless shit! We need to salvage, now!” Spittle flew out of Mack’s mouth. “If we don’t ship out enough product, our asses are screwed!”

So the great Cobra Klan was indebted to another party, eh? That was the disadvantage of sticking to gangs. The moment your boss made a stupid decision, the consequences rippled through the crew. Safety in numbers meant nothing if the bigger group kicked down your defenses and massacred everyone.

Where the hell is Lisa’s backup? Don’t tell me they’re in there?

As I was contemplating the stupidity of that thought, Lisa proceeded to pull an even stupider move. She stepped ahead into full view of the gangers.

“Good day, everyone!” She declared. My jaw dropped. The raging fire was forgotten. The other gangers turned around, equally as baffled.

“And who the fuck are you?” Mack spat.

Lisa opened her mouth and spoke the same, unintelligible words in that foreign language of hers.

“Speak English!” Mack took a step forward. “How did you get up here? Who are you?”

“Boss, she’s the girl we nabbed off the streets! How did she get out?” A ganger said, pointing a finger. Mack’s face grew redder.

"Yes, you did. You even stole my precious flag away from me. That was incredibly rude of all of you. Don't you think your ancestors would be ashamed?" Lisa shook her head, like a teacher scolding a naughty student. "I shall forgive you, because your lab provided a fine entrance for my friends to greet me."

"Your...friends? You did this!" Mack said.

"Correct. I hadn't seen them in quite a while, so it was a nice surprise when they came."

Mack looked prime to explode on the spot. He slammed his foot on the ground and pointed a finger at Lisa.

"Grab that bitch and throw her back into the cell. The rest of you, put out these damn fires and look for her backup! Then we’re all going to have a long fucking conversation about keeping our stock locked up!"

A trio of gangers ran off, glad to retreat. Lisa pouted, putting a free hand on her hip. "What manners! My friends just arrived, as guests mind you, and this is how you treat them? No wonder none of you have lady friends."

This drew the attention of more than a few gangers. Scowls, mutters and snarls came from the small crowd. These guys probably scored girls at one point, only for the relationship to sour as the girls realised that gangers typically failed to make good partners.

Lisa was still speaking. Why wasn’t she coughing from the smoke like everyone else "But don't worry! My friends are very welcoming. Why don’t I introduce you to them?”

"You talk too much." growled one ganger. He slammed his fist against his palm. The silver lining of his sports cap glinted in the firelight. “Boss, let me take care of this bitch.”

“Right on, Johnny." His friend stepped forward. The name ‘Wayne’ was tattooed against the front of his jacket. These two weren't as solid as the boss, but they carried themselves with more pride than the rest of the mob. The lieutenants.

They rushed at Lisa, aiming for her limbs. Under normal circumstances, the two would have forced Lisa to the ground by locking her arms in place. They would have battered her against the floor. They should have inflicted massive trauma to her joints and head, as one of them threw away her flag into the fire. Then they would have noticed me and I would be so fucked there wouldn’t be time to apply lube.

None of that happened.

Instead, Lisa stepped forward, her eerie smile blossoming further between her rosy cheeks, and swung her flag towards Johnny as if it were a conductor's baton. The orange cloth wrapped around the entirety of Johnny's upper body, obscuring his face and torso. The outline of his face poked and squirmed through the fabric as he struggled to free himself. Wayne was shoved to the ground—I couldn't tell you why, and neither could he.

"Let go! Let me go!" Johnny screamed. He inhaled fabric and clutched his throat.

“Don’t worry.” Lisa said. Her smile only widened. “It will all be fine now.”

“The fuck are you—”

“You will no longer be in the companion of these ruffians. You will no longer have to fear anymore. Be at peace with my dear friends, mister.”

Wayne rose up to help, only to stop in his tracks as thick, acrid smoke began to rise out of the space surrounding Johnny. For an instant, I thought the fire in the lab had grown stronger. But no—it was coming directly from the bundle beneath the flag’s cloth. Bright, orange trails then on the top of the flag and crawled down straight to Johnny. They fell the fabric like worms burrowing into the earth.

A bright, red light bloomed from within. It was like staring into the sun. We all shielded our eyes from a good few seconds. Then, I looked back and felt my gut tighten in horror.

Lisa pulled the flag back. A figure, covered from head to toe in molten orange flame, stumbled forward. The clothes and hair crumbled into ash. Chunks of skin and fat collapsed from the flesh on its legs, leaving half-melted trails behind. Two eyeballs disintegrated in their sockets, drooping down like a cracked egg, leaving behind two gaping, pitch-black holes.

The figure screamed, loud and raw. It revibrated through the smoky corridor, mixing with the howl of the flames. It tried to claw at its face, only for its fingers to melt straight off and fall to the ground.

“JOHNNY!” Wayne scrambled up and ran to his friend, only to shriek and retreat as flames leapt from Johnny’s ablaze form. His shirt sleeves were first. The flames took to the cotton fabric like an invading army. In an instant, the boy’s entire torso was aflame.His hands batted at the fire, but he only succeeded in burning his own skin further.

Johnny then collapsed forward, pinning Wayne to the ground. There were two burning figures now. Two voices shrieking, two crumbling bodies immolated down to the very last bone, one single girl watching this all with a gentle smile.

The two boys let out one final scream. Their entire bodies imploded, merging together into a singular patch of flame that spread across the entire breadth of the hallway. The skin, bones, organs, brains and all that made Johnny and Wayne themselves were nowhere to be found. Nothing signified the two boys had ever existed..

Then Lisa, that horrible girl, knelt down with a gentle smile and stuck her hands into the fire, unharmed. Embers traced up her fingertips. She lifted part of the flame out, holding it to her chest as if it were a newborn child.

“There, now.” She whispering to the flame. “Isn’t this so much better than your hate and rage? My friends are so happy to see you? Go on, introduce yourself to them.”

She giggled as the flame leapt off her hands into the mass. She played with its flickering trails, cooing and talking softly to them. The crowd just watched in terrified silence. All the bluster was sucked out of Mack’s lungs. He gibbered and shook as the clockworks in his brain ground to a halt. Couldn’t blame him, not when I and the rest of his crew were doing the same.

Wetness on my palms. My fingernails had clawed through my skin. I didn’t bother to wipe them away. Couldn’t make a single move, not if it alerted Lisa—no, the monster. In the end, it was a rookie ganger who broke the silence.

“I…” His teeth chattered. The tongue flapped up and down as the word struggled itself out of his throat. “I...I...IMPURITY!”

And the word was spoken with the ferocity, desperation and sheer terror of a priest staring down the devil. INTERFACE-OS roared to life in my vision.

IMPURITY DETECTED.

FOR THE SAKE OF A PURE, HUMAN WORLD, ITS EXISTENCE CANNOT BE TOLERATED. SUPPRESS IT NOW!